Thursday, June 30, 2016

A Child's Grave in an English Churchyard

Facebook reminded me that I posted this exactly five years ago. I'm re-posting it now and am happy to say that my dear English friend and her 95-year-old husband are still thriving in Gloucestershire.

We’re
back in Northern Greece after a four-day weekend spent in the English
countryside—specifically in Gloucestershire where a dear friend was
celebrating her husband’s 90th birthday with a lavish outdoor party at
Chastleton House which included tours of the stately home, waiters who
were professional opera singers and a picnic lunch which included
champagne and smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches in the famous
topiary gardens.

The day before—Saturday—an erudite gentleman
named Sebastian Halliday gave us a tour of the bucolic villages of the
area including Bibury, Swinbrook, Minster Lovell and Burford.

We
explored the thatch-roofed cottages and ancient churches covered with
climbing roses and honeysuckle vines and ate in a pub overlooking the
wide, shallow river that wound through each village.

Along with Japanese tourists we photographed swans, ducks and horses with new foals, sheep and gardens at their peak of glory. We saw graves of knights and soldiers, church dignitaries and ordinary people who died of the black plague in 1349.

I
love exploring cemeteries in every place I visit. (Favorites are in
Edinburgh, New Orleans, Pere Lachaise in Paris and the Poor Cemetery in
Martinique.) The green, mossy ancient stones leaning every which way
in a rural Cotswold churchyard always remind me of Sir Thomas Gray’s
“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” which mourns the many simple
peasants and villages who have lived and died without leaving any record
of their lives or their talents and abilities.

I photographed
the tombs of the Fettiplace knights, all resting on their elbows in the
church of St. Mary’s in Swinbrook, and was fascinated by the tombs of
several of the Mitford sisters—perhaps the most controversial,
scandalous and talented sisters ever produced by England. (The engraving at the top of Nancy Mitford's gravestone is a mole, which is the animal of the coat of arms of the Mitfords because she hated crosses.)

But the only gravestone that moved me to tears was
one near the ruins of the Lovell stately home at Minster Lovell, near
the wide shallow river, filled with water lilies, where children and
dogs were wading. I
was drawn to the grave because it featured a statue of a sleeping cat.
The stone read “Noah Wright/ 14-11-05/ 16-1-05/ May your light shine
through.”

This
grave was in memory of a little boy, born in November of 2005 who lived
only two days—not even surviving to his first Christmas. His parents
and mourners had visited his grave repeatedly, leaving flowers (fresh
and artificial), a stone, and, on top of the sleeping cat statue, a
yellow ceramic star. I picked it up and turned it over, thinking it
looked like a Christmas ornament. On the other side someone had
lettered in a child-like hand “Noah.”

I put the star back where
it was and went into the church to photograph the tomb of a sleeping
knight with his hands folded in prayer but I couldn’t get the thought of
Noah and his parents out of my mind.

And I remembered the most famous lines from Thomas Gray’s elegy:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseenAnd waste its sweetness on the desert air

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A Rolling Crone

After 40 years as a journalist, I turned 60 and decided to return to my first love--painting. I’ve exhibited watercolors and photographs in Massachusetts and have a slide show of paintings below. My photo book “The Secret Life of Greek Cats” can be purchased by clicking on the cover below.
I collect way too many things, but my great passion is antique photographs, from the earliest—daguerreotypes (circa 1840) up to 1900 (cabinet cards, tintypes.) I approach each one as a mystery to solve, and in unlocking their secrets have met some fascinating historic figures. For some of the stories, check the list of “The Story Behind the Photograph”.
My husband Nick and I live in Grafton, MA and recently celebrated our 41st anniversary. We have 3 children, now amazing adults. And on Aug. 26, 2011, we greeted our first grandchild, Amalía-- world’s cutest baby. But this blog isn’t about grandparenting (although photos of the grandkid sneak in). As it says up top, it’s about travel, art, photography and life after sixty. And crone power.